The Real St Nicholas Was No Santa

Ross Amico

December 6, 2022

St. Nicholas Day follows on the cloven hoof of Krampus Night.

In theory, the whole Nicholas-Krampus dynamic serves as a kind of “good cop/bad cop” scenario, with the naughty, threatened with the punishment of Krampus (the Christmas devil), driven to virtue, reinforced by the rewards of Nicholas (the patron saint of children).

But that’s a gross oversimplification, as it turns out Nicholas could be a pretty rough customer. He’d have to be, to be looking after not only children, but sailors, merchants, archers, prostitutes, women seeking husbands, repentant thieves, wrongly condemned criminals, travelers, pawnbrokers, and students. I’d be grouchy too.

Nicholas did not suffer fools lightly. His modesty could be so extreme as to sometimes verge on the sociopathic, and he could be downright cantankerous when thanked.

So what’s your favorite Nicholas story?

Is it when he tosses the bags of gold down a poor man’s chimney, surreptitiously providing a dowry for the man’s daughters and rescuing them from a life of prostitution, and then sharply rebuffs the man for his thanks?

Or is it when he chastises the sailors for their salty language, and when they mock him for his prudishness, prays for stormy seas until they drop to the deck in terror and repent?

Or is it when he reconstitutes and resurrects the three pickled boys, dismembered by a treacherous butcher to be passed off to his customers as ham?

Or is it when he sends Arius, father of Arianism, sprawling for his heresy that Jesus Christ is subordinate to the entity of God?

The Nicholas of history and legend was a far cry from your Coca-Cola Santa.

There’s no way I’m sitting on this guy’s lap. Happy St. Nicholas Day!

“Legends of St. Nicholas,” performed by Anonymous 4